Late 1970s: Former First Lady Betty Ford enters a treatment program for alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

Today: The Betty Ford Clinic, founded by the former-First Lady and frequented by celebrities, is the nation's best known treatment center for addictive behaviors.

Late 1970s: Garfield the cat cartoons make their first appearance in the nation's newspapers.

Today: The enormously popular cartoon cat, having made television specials and sold millions of items of Garfield paraphernalia, branches out to his first feature-length movie in 2004.

Late 1970s: The first "test-tube baby" is born in England, resulting from a successful in-vitro fertilization and embryo implantation into the mother.

Today: Thousands of IVF babies are born each year as the process has become further improved and culturally accepted, despite some moral and ethical objections.

Late 1970s: Statewide limitations on indoor smoking are passed in Iowa and New Jersey.

Today: Indoor...